Rick Bayless

Award-winning chef-restaurateur, cookbook author, and television personality Chef Rick Bayless has done more than any other culinary star to introduce Americans to authentic Mexican cuisine and to change the image of Mexican food in America.

Chef Rick is fourth generation in an Oklahoma family of restaurateurs and grocers. From 1980 to 1986, after studying Spanish and Latin American Studies as an undergraduate, and doing doctoral work in Anthropological Linguistics at the University of Michigan, Chef Rick lived in Mexico with his wife, Deann, writing his now-classic Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking From The Heart of Mexico (William Morrow, 1987). The New York Times's legendary Craig Claiborne hailed this work as the "greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable."

Chef Rick moved to Chicago, opened the hugely successful Frontera Grill, which specializes in contemporary regional Mexican cooking. Still today it remains one of Chicago's hottest dining spots. In 1988, Food & Wine Magazine selected Rick as "Best New Chef of The Year," and in 1991, he won a James Beard Award for "Best American Chef: Midwest." In 1995, he won another James Beard Award for "National Chef of the Year" as well as an award for "Chef of the Year" from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). In 1998, the Beard Foundation honored Rick as "Humanitarian of the Year." In 2002, Bon Appétit honored him with the "Cooking Teacher of the Year Award".

Recipe

Awards

Winner, Top Chef Masters 2009 (Bravo)
Cooking Teacher of the Year Award 2002 (Bon Appétit magazine)
Humanitarian of the year 1998 (James Beard Foundation)
Who's Who of American Food and Drink
Chef of the Year 1995 (IACP)
National Chef of the Year 1995 (James Beard Foundation)
Best American Chef: Midwest 1991 (James Beard Foundation)
Best New Chef of 1988 (Food & Wine magazine)